Alchemy (found here)

The following short article will appear in the November issue of HOMESTYLE magazine:

ALCHEMY, an exciting exhibition of collaborative work by Kate Alterio, contemporary jeweller, and Claire Beynon, visual artist, will open at Gallery 33 in Wanaka on Friday 20 November.

There are several outstanding features about this show; a co-mentoring process meant each artist stepped outside their primary discipline in order to familiarize herself with the conceptual approaches and technical skills relevant to the other. The resulting body of work showcases this inter-disciplinary cross-pollination.

Limited edition pieces created hand-in-hand by both artists will be exhibited alongside a series of collaborative mixed media 2-D works. In addition to these, each artist has developed her own individual collection (comprising jewellry, wall installations, 3-D sculptural works, drawings and paintings). The work is about transformative processes and will be presented as a shared conversation or journey.

ALCHEMY continues to Mid-December and will travel to The Artist’s Room, Dunedin and Quoil Gallery, Wellington in early 2010. For further info.. visit www.gallery33.co.nz

Kate's brooches

Claire's slide pieces

MUDRA – Claire photographing Kate during our studio process

WRITE ON - Hills AM 1575KHz - Fathom / Open Book / InterfaCE (Interview with Vanda Symon, March 2008)

You are an artist who I would say is on a spiritual quest. Does the idea of being on spiritual quest resonate with you?

Yes, it does. I could not imagine creating work that doesn’t have content as its core. Most important for me is the fact that content helps create relationship. One of my hopes is that my personal search for contact and content will lead to engagement with others who are themselves searching for meaning. This conversation begins with the invention of a visual vocabulary, which in turn promotes access and understanding. It’s a bit like adding another layer to our regular spoken and written language. The source, of course, is our universal wellspring, something available to us all.

Are you trying to translate into a piece of art something that you sense? Is it a way of reaching out and establishing contact?

Making art is a way for me to connect the physical and spiritual worlds. It is also a means of establishing connections between people and place.

How do you set yourself up to make contact with the inspiration?

The foundation of it all is not having to know where I am going. I have to trust that there is something out there and in here that will connect. This trust leads my hand to make visible what is invisible. I start out with nothing. The process itself leads me and at some point along the way, I almost always look back and say “ah”.

So trust seems key. How do you create trust?

I tend to pack quite a lot into my life and occasionally get a bit ‘whelmed by the ideas I have and the projects I’d like to develop or become involved in (’whelmed is not the same as ‘overwhelmed, by the way!’). I do say “no” to a fair bit, but of course I say “yes” a lot, too. I guess I’m what you’d call a ‘now counts’ person, but this can present me with challenges around busyness. It is always the process of working that takes me to the still point or ‘trust place.’ Occasionally, my dear Ma will say she worries that I work too hard and exhorts me to do less, but in truth, my experience is that when I work, the work takes me to the necessary place of stillness and calm that is essential to my overall wellbeing. Whilst there, trust is like a fountain that energizes me and fills me up. I find I often create visual compositions that counter the outer chaos. Curiously, the more chaos and busyness there is in my outer world, the quieter and more balanced things seem to become in my internal worlds and the steadier and clearer my work becomes. TS Eliot wrote: “ At the still point of the turning world is the dance… “ I reflect on these words often.

How have you constructed your environment to support as well as express the creative process?

My studio space is both a containing and an energizing space. Even when work is difficult, the studio feels like a sanctuary, a space I enter with a sense of anticipation, safety and purpose. It is also an anchoring place where I can experiment with risk-taking. I read somewhere that we ‘cannot be courageous cautiously…’ but sometimes our work – as with our lives – can be terrifying or at least, daunting. Having a dedicated space like a studio where safety and risk can walk hand-in-hand is a huge gift.

Is it much the same as a painting or drawing.

Absolutely, yes. The structure of my workspace is based on sacred geometry and musical notation; it feels to me like a harmonious composition. I enter it and feel calm. This ‘right’ relationship with the studio feels really important.

You are also a poet. What is the relationship between the writer and the painter?

For me they are parts of the same continuum. Each is an expression of an intention to communicate. I notebook while I work. Poetry, drawings and paintings sometimes come out of these notebook jottings and at other times arrive spontaneously and independently. Often they bounce off each other and inform each other.

One of the themes of the conference is idealism. Are you an idealist?

Yes, I’d say I am to some extent - although idealism on its own is a cul-de-sac, I think. I believe that communication and - by inference - relationship, are vital for the ongoing life of any idea. Without communication, ideas stay grounded. They cannot unfurl wings and fly. And yet, no matter what approach we take, or how we try to make our questions visible, mystery is the one ‘known’ that underpins and overarches everything we come into contact with. While I draw first from the ideal, I am also constantly on the lookout for clues in our physical world that might offer a ‘way in.’

FATHOM documents a voyage. In October last year, I was one of ten women and men invited to participate in the Caselburg Trust’s inaugural Breaksea Residency - a 'waterborne' adventure in remote Western Fiordland aboard Ruth and Lance Shaw’s conservation yacht, the Breaksea Girl. The diverse group included composer Gillian Whitehead, jeweler Lynn Kelly, film maker Mark Orton, visual artists Wayne Seyb, Marilynn Webb and Nigel Brown, artist-writers Greg O’Brien and Claire Beynon and poets Alan Roddick and Glenn Colquhoun. FATHOM began as an exploration of this experience, combining responses to the dramatic environment (where it rained and stormed with considerable alacrity!) with a plea for its preservation. The images on this exhibition reference Fiordland’s unique history, its mythology and stories; they distill conversations and relationship dynamics, allude to future collaborative potentials.

The ‘particular’ boat sailed on - as every good boat must - beyond that which is current and personal and out into wider, universal waters to encompass our shared life journey with its common denominator of detours and challenges, moments of joy, anguish, love, loss, discovery, transformation and learning.

There are some exciting new developments in this work, some of which are so subtle and allusive as to make them nigh impossible to photograph. An extra layer of imagery and text is etched into each sheet of glass. Glass is, of course, an absolute necessity when working on paper, but in this work, I have treated it as a positive layer essential to each piece, rather than as a practical framing requirement. Transparency is an ideal I aspire to - both metaphorically and in ‘life lived’ so it’s been interesting to seek out new methods to allow me to integrate the solidity and weight of drawn and painted images with the ephemeral, quasi-weightless qualities of glass; a different conversation has come into being.

THE DIVERSION GALLERY